Here’s another park review brought to you by the Junior Naturalist Program: Turnipseed Nature Preserve!
Turnipseed Nature preserve is located South of Wendell near Johnson County, so it may not be a park you have heard of before. It’s also only been open since 2017, so it’s a fairly new park on the Raleigh area scene.
The park is currently mainly only a wildlife refuge with lots of hiking trails, but man is it HUGE! There are two entrances to the park at:
7100 Hunt Valley Trail Wendell, NC 27591
and
1525 Pleasants Road Wendell, NC 27591
We went in at Hunt Valley trail since that’s the one that google knew about. After we entered I felt like we were driving FOREVER just to get to the parking lot. The road winded around quite a bit, and unfortunately it’s a gravel road so it throws up a lot of dust.
Hiking Trails
Once we parked in the parking lot I noticed the trail-head marker. We didn’t really walk the trail because I didn’t get the stroller out and my 1 year old isn’t that good of a walker yet. Read: Mama didn’t want to break her back carrying that 25 lbs back to the car! But we did wander around the area near the parking lot a little bit.
The main thing my kids enjoyed was the open play field with the rock formation. I don’t know what it was about rocks placed in a circle in a big field, but they wanted to climb all over them!
Would I go back?
So as you can see, Turnipseed Nature Preserve isn’t necessarily a park you’d want to take the little ones to play, unless you just want to hike, run around an open field, and/or see some animals. But for the nature lovers of your family, this is a nice refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city! We didn’t hear anything except birds while we were there!
Drawbacks are that there are no bathrooms or drinking water onsite. You’re really out in nature! They also, like Robertson Millpond, have limited hours after the first weekend in August. They are currently only open on Saturdays and Sundays until Mother’s day.
Pros
- hiking trails
- wildlife viewing
- open fields
- picnic tables
Cons
- no bathrooms
- no drinking water
- gravel road
- no playground